electrical problem (knob & tube)

i am trying to rewire my front bedroom. i ran a new wire from the basement to the socket under the light switch (thats where that connects too) ans taped off the old wires that i thought were the hot ones they were wraped together. when i was connecting the wires together. i felt a little zap but no wires were connected in the basement yet. i dont want any fires or anything so any help would be appreciated. i really dont know anything about the knob and tube wiring.
thanks,
mike

 

You may of tapes off wires heading on to another fixture or receptacle. In times passed when then ran wires into building that previously didn't have electricity they would run everything up to the attic andthen run the wires downward. This may be the case. Go to the fixture and see how many old wires were there. The feed may of went there first. You will need some type of tester to test each wire until you find the problem. If you only find one set of wires at the fixure then you will have to backtrack until you find the actual feed. Knob and tube can be confusing to troubleshoot as when it was installed there were very few codes and rules anyone had to follow. I rewired a few houses that had Thomas Edisons signature on the old panels and even he didn't follow a set pattern.

 

I'm not sure I understand what you are attempting. Are you attempting to get power from the outlet or bring power to the outlet? If you are attempting to get power from it, you shouldn't. That outlet will not be grounded and you are not premitted to extend an ungrounded circuit. If you want to do it anyway just use the 2 wires that are connected to the outlet and install a gfci with the little tag that says ungrounded at the new location.